Can Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump? Latest poll updates

Vice President Kamala Harris will go head-to-head with Donald Trump in just over weeks as Americans cast their votes in the 2024 election.

The race has only become tighter, with Harris just one point ahead of Trump in several polls. The outcome of the election is anyone’s game.

In the seven swing states, neither candidate is more than a few points ahead, according to fresh polls from The Washington Post.

So how will Harris and Trump fare in November?

The latest average of national polls, collated by FiveThirtyEight, shows Harris with a 1.7-point lead over Trump. On average, Harris has been marginally ahead of Trump, but this gap has closed over the last month.

A new Washington Post/Schar school megapoll (of 5,000 registered voters) has Harris is just 1 point ahead of Trump.

Harris has 49 percent of the vote and Trump 48 percent, according to the poll taken in the first two weeks of October.

This close race is also reflected in the swing states.

In the seven key states, neither candidate is leading likely voters outside of the margin of error, even at this late stage in the race.

The two candidates are tied in Nevada, while Trump leads in Arizona and North Carolina, and Harris leads in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

In the battleground states, the poll found that 37 percent of registered voters will “definitely” back Harris, and 37 percent for Trump.

Meanwhile, 10 percent of swing state voters each say they will “probably” support Trump or Harris; meaning that 1 in 5 of those votes are still uncommitted.

Meanwhile, an Emerson College poll found that nearly 1 in 5 voters (17 percent) say they only made up their minds in the past month.

These voters were more likely to have decided to vote for Harris (60 percent) than Trump (36 percent). Despite this, Harris’s national lead has gone down, not up.

The Independent’s DC correspondent John Bowden reports that after Harris’s honeymoon surge, the election is now “truly anyone’s ballgame.”

Key issues for swing voters

The economy has consistently topped the list of key issues for voters in this election.

The Washington Post poll of swing state voters also found that healthcare and threats to democracy topped the list of factors for deciding the next President.

Though Trump has advocated for overhauling Obamacare, with unsuccessful attempts during his presidency, he was unable to outline an alternative healthcare policy at the September presidential debate.

Immigration ranks highly as a deciding factor in this election, and exclusive polling for The Independent shows that the candidates’ immigration policies are of high importance to Latino voters.

Interestingly, climate change ranks the lowest in list of priorities for swing state voters this year.

Climate change has scarcely been on the agenda in this election, with Harris and Walz largely silent on the matter, and Trump-Vance actively perpetrating climate denial.

With the recent devastating hurricanes, climate change was once again brought to the forefront; though Trump incorrectly stated in a speech on October 1 that “the planet has actually gotten a little bit cooler recently.”

Demographics

The latest polls from the New York Times/Siena College have Harris ahead by 3 points, at 49 percent and Trump at 46 percent.

The strongest support group for Harris remains young voters and those from non-white backgrounds. Trump’s key base are white, non-college voters.

Meanwhile, to the chagrin of the Trump campaign, the poll suggests that older generations of voters are no longer staunchly Republican.

For both Gen X and Boomers, Trump’s lead has significantly diminished over the last few New York Times/Siena College polls.

In fact, the two candidates are effectively tied among both groups, as Trump has just a 1 and 2 point lead, within the +-2.4 margin of error.

While it remains to be seen how this might change in the final stretch, the Republican Party has won the over-65 set in every election since 2000.

In addition, nearly 1 in 10 (9 percent) of Republicans may be voting for Harris and abandoning party lines.

Of 898 Republicans polled in early October, 9 percent said they would vote for Harris next month. The same poll showed 5 percent in September.

The gender divide between Trump and Harris voters remains strong, with women leaning left and men leaning right.

GOP troubles in the Senate race

Republicans are now concerned about Senate elections, according to an internal polling memo obtained by Politico.

The memo reveals that, by the Republicans’ own polling, their candidates are trailing behind Democrats in seven out of nine key Senate seats, data that’s largely been confirmed by public polls. Those seats are in Arizona, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

“We still have a lot of work to do to maximise our gains in this critical Senate election [...] We also have to guard our flanks,” writes the memo’s author Steven Law, head of the Senate Leadership Fund.

The memo also warns that strongholds like Nebraska and Texas could be at risk from independent and Democratic candidates.

In Texas, where former presidential hopeful Ted Cruz is defending his Senate seat, the memo shows Democrat Colin Allred as just 1 point behind, a much tighter race than it appears in public polls.

“We are putting everything we have into this fight — so there is no looking back with regret,” the memo ends.

Unstable polls in Florida

There’s been a flurry of interest around polls in Florida in the past few weeks, with Harris appearing to encroach on Trump’s lead in his home state.

In particular, figures from the historically Republican pollster RMG Research showed Trump with 50 percent of the vote and Harris with 48 percent in Florida, which is home to Mar-a-Lago and several key Republicans.

However, new polls from The New York Times show Trump ahead by a strong +13 points in the Sunshine State, at 55 percent to Harris’s 41 percent.

Though this is out of line with several recent polls in the state, New York Times analyst Nate Cohn suggests that this poll is not an outlier, saying: “Mr. Trump [excels] in states where Republicans performed well in the 2022 midterm elections — as they did in Florida. As a result, this poll is not the usual outlier.”

“If Florida becomes more solidly Republican in 2024, it suggests that the upheaval during and after the pandemic has had a lasting effect on American politics.”

Vance wins the VP debate and a popularity boost

The debate between Ohio Senator Vance and Minnesota Governor Walz turned expectations on its head; with betting markets and pre-polls eyeing Walz as the presumed winner.

Not only did Vance “win” the debate, but his performance appears to have done wonders for his public perception, which had been suffering for months.

Our analysis before the debate found that Walz led Trump, Vance, and even Harris in terms of favorability.

Vance received an +11 point boost in favorability from the debate, according to the latest poll from YouGov.

This leaves Vance in a neutral position, while voters had an overall –11 percent unfavorable opinion of him before the debate.

Most interestingly, Vance improved his favorability by an astonishing +19 points among Democrats. Although, overall, he is still at a net –52 percent negative score among this group.

Walz also received a more modest 3-point boost, reaching 15 percent favorability in YouGov’s poll.

Although Walz’s performance was not debate-winning, he is still the most-liked candidate, and he even improved his favorability among independent voters following the debate.

Among his own party, though, he lost approval from 7 percent of voters, still ending up at a net-positive position of 72 percent favorability with Democrats.

Snap polls following the debate show that viewers were split on both candidates and Vance came out a few points ahead.

A CBS/YouGov poll found that 42 percent of viewers considered Vance the debate winner, compared to 41 percent for Walz.

However, Walz did emerge as more in touch with the average American, and more likely to share voters’ vision for America.

Who will vote?

A YouGov/Economist poll has Harris with a three-point lead among registered voters, at 47 percent, and Trump at 44 percent. The poll shows a wide 25-point margin for Harris among young voters, aged 29 and under.

However, according to the same poll, the younger generations are also the least committed to voting, with 13 percent of the 18-29-year-olds surveyed saying they will “maybe” vote, while 3 percent will not vote or are still unsure.

This amounts to 16 percent who are on the fence or not voting, higher than any other age group, and higher than the average of 9 percent. Just 65 percent of the 18 to 29-year-olds polled said they would definitely vote in November.

This is in comparison to 77 percent of 30 to 44-year-olds, 85 percent of 45 to 64-year-olds, and 94 percent of the 65+ age group.

Though the numbers may seem dismal, and represent a degree of hesitancy among younger voters, the overall picture is significantly more engaged than in 2020.

The same YouGov/Economist poll at this stage in the 2020 presidential election showed that nearly a third of young people (27 percent) were not committed to voting in November, with 10 percent “maybxe” voting and 17 percent “definitely/probably” not voting.